<p>Few people have heard of Blue Whale Energy North America Corp., but the Houston company has purchased oil fields in Texas with $1.3 billion from Chinese investors&ndash;all with the blessing of U.S. regulators.</p> <p>Since April, Blue Whale has acquired the oil assets from three companies backed by such private equity firms as&nbsp;<a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/privateequity/2015/11/06/chinese-company-makes-a-complicated-play-for-texas-oil-fields/" target="_blank">ArcLight Capital Partners and Denham Capital</a>.</p> <p>Launched in 2014, Blue Whale serves as a foothold for Yantai Xinchao Industry Co., a Chinese industrial conglomerate that intends to expand its business into energy exploration and production.</p> <p>&ldquo;As one of the largest oil consumers globally, China has seen consistently increasing demand for oil resources in recent years,&rdquo; Yantai said in a Dec. 3 announcement about funding the purchases.</p> <p>&ldquo;The current crude-price downturn presents a good opportunity to acquire overseas quality oil-field assets,&rdquo; it said.</p>